• The Flag – Heat Waves

    July 28, 2015 - By 

    One-man racket-making specialist Ted McGrath has hit on to a nice niche here. With The Flag’s Heat Waves, he’s happened onto this strange electronic hybrid. Swathes of eclectic influences, styles and instrumentation all come together in this intriguing amalgamation. Sensations of Girl Band, The KLF and Young Fathers all come to mind as the album takes you on its rather spritely journey. It’s sharp, absorbing and more often than not quite compelling. There are issues with its layout and construction, however, that hurt the experience overall. The proceedings start well with the titular ‘Heat Waves’, this brooding creeping creature which…

  • Wilco – Star Wars

    July 17, 2015 - By 

    “Why release an album this way and why make it free? Well, the biggest reason, and I’m not sure we even need any others, is that it felt like it would be fun. What’s more fun than a surprise?” So posited the ever quizzical Jeff Tweedy on Wilco’s Facebook page earlier tonight, just when pretty much every Wilco aficionado (especially those of us brushing our teeth before bed) was positively not expecting Wilco’s first studio album in four years to be let loose onto the internet for free. Now, rather than answer his concluding rhetorical question (let’s face it, there’s plenty…

  • Desaparecidos – Payola

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    Bright Eyes, and by extension their central member Conor Oberst, are the sort of group who elicit a strong reaction from people. There are those who think him a Dylanesque wunderkind whose every word perfectly summarises all the emotion that their teenage selves never could, others see him as an obnoxious, overgrown perpetual adolescent who needs to get over himself rather swiftly. There is also a decently sized camp who are indifferent until he lets his frustration loose in the rawest manner. Of the three groups, the one who’ll be most satisfied by the man’s latest venture, the long awaited…

  • Benjamin Finger – Pleasurably Lost/Motion Reverse

    July 1, 2015 - By 

    Norwegian producer Benjamin Finger is having quite a prolific year. An insatiable creator, he moves between genres and modes of production without any pressure to stick in one particular lane. Having released the melancholic Pleasurably Lost on niche French label Eilean Rec some months back, he’s just put out Motion Reverse on Dutch-based Shimmering Moods. The two albums are blissful and haunting in equal measure, yet express their respective ideas in hugely opposing fashions. Recorded in Oslo over a period of three years, Pleasurably Lost was inspired by Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. This writer’s work was concerned with paradox and…

  • The Needables – Tales From The Fish Tank

    June 30, 2015 - By 

    How good Country music is considered to be is typically based off one of two things: songwriting ability or the author’s authenticity. For the most part, it’s music meant for working men and women, those forgotten or left behind by society and longing for a return to some former clarity. If you look into the annals of great country music, an almost exaggerated number of its greatest heroes fit this mould to a tee; so it only makes sense that any individual or group that can capture that sense of sadness tinged with bitter optimism while having the appropriately solid…

  • The Frames – Longitude

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    The Frames have been together in one form or another for twenty-five years and counting. A quarter of a century. That’s a pretty impressive innings, given their profession that they have made it up as they’ve gone along, more ambling than shambling, steadily building up an avid fan base the world over. Not many bands can claim such an achievement – the bonhomie that keeps this fraternity chugging along is clearly genuine, a deep bond that has been forged from years of grinding against an industry that is largely indifferent to proper songs that cannot be squeezed into an easily…

  • Tame Impala – Currents

    June 24, 2015 - By 

    Australian Kevin Parker is the inventive mind behind Tame Impala; a band among the new wave of psych-rock revivalists.  It began as a solo venture, as he wrote, recorded, produced and performed the music, before expanding to become the outfit we know it as today.  Most psych bands nowadays fit into two categories: they’re either a throwback to classic psych instrumentation, making use of feedback, and often get too caught up in clichés; or they operate like Deerhunter or Tame Impala, touching on the past but managing to make use of modern electronics to add a depth of tone and…

  • SOAK – Before We Forgot How To Dream

    June 10, 2015 - By 

    Youth is a wonderful and bliss experience, and it passes us by too quickly. Bridie Monds-Watson, still in her teenage years, has been able to pen the most relatable experiences and over the past few years, her progression into an artist has unfolded before our eyes. Having written single ‘Sea Creatures’ years before it made it to the Radio 1 A List, SOAK has been gaining traction across the UK ever since. With notable fans across the Beeb and even further afield, along with appearing at numerous festivals across the UK, it wasn’t long before Rough Trade took notice and…

  • Hudson Mohawke – Lantern

    June 9, 2015 - By 

    To put it colloquially, Warp Records have been absolutely killing it over the last two years. Given their legacy within the electronic music world, the Sheffield label has always guaranteed a certain level of quality, but in recent years their output has begun to become so much more fascinating. Any label that can release the like of Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest, Aphex Twin’s Syro, Flying Lotus’s You’re Dead! and Clark’s Feast/Beast within two years is doing something terribly interesting. The most recent release in their agenda is Hudson Mohawke’s latest LP, Lantern, his first major release since his barnstorming ‘Chimes’…

  • Sun Kil Moon – Universal Themes

    June 8, 2015 - By 

    It’s fair to say Sun Kil Moon guitarist and vocalist Mark Kozelek is a multi-faceted and somewhat temperamental individual: he wears his heart on his sleeve and bears his soul through song. He had a well documented spat with The War on Drugs last year after their sound bled on to his stage at a festival, and has even criticised his own fans for being a bunch of hipster “guys in tennis shoes” [ed: see Laura Snape’s recent piece on his on-stage response to her attempts to interview and profile the artist]. Last year’s release Benji was an emotionally wrought…